PURC orders ECG to suspend billing software

The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has asked the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to suspend the usage of its new billing software.

This is the software which the ECG has been using to generate bills for credit consumers of electricity.

According to the PURC, the new software was recently replaced and it has been realized that there were some anomalies with the billing.

Instead of consumers being billed for the 28-day normal cycle which is stipulated in law, the software was rather calculating beyond the 28-day.

“They were billing consumers 43 days. When you bill somebody over the normal billing cycle, because of the structure of the tariff, then you move the person into another tariff bracket, which means the person is being charged too much than the normal consumption, ” Nana Yaa Akyempim Jantuah, Director of Public Relations and External Affairs at the PURC explained,

According to her, there was a case where a customer was disconnected but was still being billed over a period of six months based on the debt that he owed and not the actual consumption over the period.

So what happens?

“We have asked them to do a re-billing, suspend the billing software until these things are done, so that whoever has fallen prey, and have fallen into the category of over billing, they have to do a re-billing …and even where there are refunds to be done, they will do it.”

Prepaid meters

She clarified that these are not metering issues, rather it was only with billing for credit meter users.

Complaints from prepaid consumers were still being worked on, she said,